Attribution is not a measurement problem. It is a communication problem. The goal is not perfect credit allocation -- it is giving leadership enough confidence in the data to make better budget decisions. A model that is 80% accurate and trusted is worth more than a model that is 95% accurate and ignored.
Step 1: Choose the right attribution model for your business
No single attribution model is correct. The right model depends on your sales cycle length, the number of touchpoints before a decision, and what decisions the model needs to support.
Recommended starting point for B2B SaaS with a 30-90 day sales cycle: W-shaped or linear. Use first touch for awareness reporting and last touch for conversion optimisation. Run them in parallel and let the comparison surface the discrepancies.
Step 2: Fix the data foundation
Attribution models produce output only as good as the data feeding them. Most B2B companies have three structural data problems before they can trust attribution.
Step 3: Build the reporting layer
The attribution model is only useful if it produces reports that answer the questions leadership actually asks.
The three reports that matter:
Report both sourced and influenced. Sourced shows marketing's direct contribution. Influenced shows marketing's role in deals that sales initiated. Both are real and both matter to leadership.
Channel-level performance report:
For each channel, report: spend, first-touch opportunities, W-shaped attributed pipeline, cost per opportunity, and win rate of opportunities from that channel. Win rate by channel is the metric most marketing teams miss -- a channel that generates lots of leads but loses deals is not a valuable channel.
Step 4: Use attribution to make better decisions
Attribution model health checklist
"CMOs who present attribution data as a directional signal rather than a precise measurement report 3x higher CFO confidence in marketing budget decisions compared to those who present it as definitive."
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